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Articles

What job is there tomorrow?

We used to eagerly wait for a guest lecture during college days. It was a great opportunity to connect to the external world, away from books. If the guy happened to be an old-student of the college, it was more interesting. There was a possibility to find a role model, a future employer or at least a mentor!

One of the best I liked was when folks who came, painted the picture of tomorrow and described how we may be playing our part in that picture. When I started taking the stage as a guest/ industry speaker I continued the same. Made sure to study, prepare and then together paint a picture of tomorrow – a projection of what we see through the lens of technology advancement and societal impact.

Today’s session was very intriguing. It was comparing all the pictures I had used in last 30 years of working with technology, projected on a picture depicting next 10-15 years.

Interesting facts I noticed, include:

  1. Across generations, technology advancements have changed the society at large, workforce in particular. Level of intelligence / smartness of people, Wealth of Nations & Individuals, Economic Inclusion & Risk aversion are some indicators of the same.
  2. Interestingly, every step change in technology has created a lot of new jobs and displaced several of them at the same time.
  3. Similarly, it has increased labor productivity while widening skill gap at the same rate! Re-skilling, De-skilling, Portability – all are mainstream HR actions today. Average relevant experience within teams in any stream of work is continuously decreasing. Performance appraisals disappearing, attrition getting new definition, employee engagement is short-term focused.
  4. In almost every country, several highly-in-demand jobs never existed 5-10 years ago. Extending this further, may be over 65% of kids joining school now, may be working in jobs that are not yet defined!

In the current context, projecting and showing future job picture is daunting. But this is a routine challenge for Governments, Industries and Academia. Tracking trends and relating them back to how they impact in short, medium and long-term is critical. Over years, technology is helping here too. The paradoxical nature of technology advancement and societal good is best pivoted around the basic need of employment. Having a tool / dashboard, is very neat. Here is one such wonderful attempt: MyNextMove

Irrespective of a tool, mentor or own guess-work, it is important to stay current and close to changes relevant to our jobs. Investing in “personal” technology upgrades as routinely as that of your next OS upgrade for the mobile phone or computer, is very critical. After sometime, no one will support that, at any cost!

One simple strategy that works for your business, works for you too…

Be close, relevant and significant contributor in your field of work!

 

What to do when you feel stuck?

Mentoring is based on the premise that there’s at least one useful, bridgeable gap of experience or expertise between the two people in the relationship. With this comes the responsibility of making sure that the progress is multiple than normal course of journey. But, when there’s progress, it becomes that much difficult to show whether it was truly due to mentoring or was it natural if you are on the path of success.

True test of mentoring comes, when we are stuck.

It happens all the time with open roundtables. We neither have a background of the founder, nor fully aware of their current business situation. Last week, we had an interesting case – a seasoned engineer in his early fifties, ventured into a new business with a set of three friends from his earlier team. All are familiar to each other – their capabilities, behaviour and work culture. They came with their issue – unable to take their product to field trial. With signed up customers, lined up distributors and great review of the product by experts, there was nothing that seemed stopped them. But they were feeling stuck.

Careful examination of their status and diligent observation of their readiness threw open the most important issue – it was just that fear of failure wading in their minds. They had managed large businesses for bigger corporates and never launched anything of their own craft any time before. They wanted just an assurance from someone who had successfully failed in new ventures and still managed to sail through to upstream. A small push from inside.

Reminded of the saying “Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way” that drove many managers to think same, but act differently to get better results.

Here, getting out of their own way was very important.

When we feel stuck, it is mostly the case – We should watch and just get out of our own way. Progress follows…

 

Contradictions that count!

Summer of 2001, on a beautiful hillside in southern California, I went bungee jumping. It’s something I had always wanted to do. But this one was pushed on to me by my i-dont-like-to-close-the-deal customer.

Over previous ten months, we were discussing a product line take over deal with this telecom major in trying to help them with better manageable product portfolio and profitability. We had crossed several barriers internally, between companies and with stakeholders. We had also built several bridges to make it a smooth ride. More or less, all items on the checklists, to-do lists and contract terms were ticked off. But CEO was not yet ready to sign. Both teams had no clue on what was the issue. He finally agreed for a breakfast meeting with me to discuss the matter. That day, I saw a different person all-together. We talked about several things – technology, politics, personal hobbies, sports so on… surprisingly we found we had several common interests. I guess this would be true with any stranger we meet as well. Then, we came to the point. I asked him how do we move ahead with the deal. He said, he was very happy with every bit of preparation, but was afraid of contradictions in reality, that might lead to disintegration of trust and finally demise of the product line. This was really serious. I asked him how do we get over this. He said. He was not sure how. But asked me – have you ever done bungee jumping? I said, “No. But it’s in my list of to-do within next 3 yrs”. He said “Then, you will not understand my state. Let’s keep this deal in suspension for some more time. See you around.”

So there I was. My bungee-master and I, standing on a platform that was raised on a bridge at an elevation of over 140 feet above beautiful stream of water through the mountain cliff. Apt site. Master explained that he’d check everything to make sure I was safe. Then he’d count down from five. He explained that when he reached three, I should take a very deep breath. When he said tow, I should clear my mind completely. And on the count of one, I should dive. Not jump. Dive. “Go head on first”, he instructed.

My bungee master checked everything and declared that I was safe. Then he asked me if I was nervous. As I recall, I said something to myself – same thing I had told myself when I first climbed to base camp of Mount Everest, same thing as when I first jumped off the cliff in Nepal for Paragliding and every other time when took up something crazy…. : “what will happen, more than losing life? Let’s enjoy every minute”. But this was different. Master shouted – “are you ready?” He started, “Five”…. “Four”…”Three”… I took very deep breath. “TWO”… and I knew I was supposed to clear my mind completely, but I couldn’t because what popped into my mind was the “contradiction” that seemed a lot less menacing 140 feet earlier.

The bungee jumping brochure said, “It is absolutely, safe! We have performed over 75,000 bungee jumps and continue to proclaim our impeccable safety record without a single accident or injury of any kind.” Which sounded pretty good. So I signed up and paid. It was just before setting foot on mountain drive  at the camp office, that they gave me a release form to sign, which said, “I understand that bungee jumping is a potentially hazardous sport, which may result in….I freely accept and fully assume all such risks, dangers and hazards and the possibility of injury, death, property damage or loss resulting therefrom.”…What????

I was able to relate to the plight of my CEO friend. Preparations matter. But taking the step requires a lot more assurance than just – don’t worry, it’s safe. we have done it before, others have done it before! It is not a promise. It is just a hope. A few will jump, based on the hope. Especially when their desires for the adventure over powers the fear of unknown.

How many contradictions can you find in your own setup, conversations? How many times you see the guy preaching “open door” policy will always be unavailable, though at desk? and how often are yourself a perpetrator or willing accomplice?

One thing is certain. When people meet contradictions, they tend to latch on to the side of the contradiction that favors their pre-existing preferences. Which is why I decided bungee jumping was safe!

My bungee master said “one” and yes, I dove! Head first. And screamed, laughed, laughed, laughed. It was insane. I was, without contradictions myself!

And so I met my friend. Shared my experience. We closed the deal and went back to one more jump over the weekend. But the first one was the best!

its fun, to be a #dreamerdoer